Archive for the ‘Hacking the Holidays’ Category

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Tradition dictates that all those of us in Ireland go watch a parade and/or get appallingly drunk on Guinness (or Murphys, Smithwicks, Bulmers, O’Hara’s, Jameson…), but as I’m neither a big drinker nor a big parade watcher, it seemed only appropriate I offer a list of alternatives.

Read some Irish Myths and Legends
Even before we touch on Leprechauns, There’s a rich tradition of storytelling in Ireland from the seanachaí (traditional itinerant storytellers) up to Lady Gregory, a folklorist and friend of poet and playwright William Butler Yeats who compiled many of them into book form. My Guide Ireland has a great concise round-up of some of the more well known ones here, and there’s a beautifully written and illustrated kids’ book of the stories available here.

Watch some Father Ted
There’s a good portion of the population between the ages of 15 and 50 regard Father Ted as one of our greatest cultural achievements, but as far as I can ascertain it has never officially aired outside of Ireland, the UK and Scandinavia. Legend has it that it was pitched as ‘Seinfeld, but with priests’ and well, it’s just that. Three priests (one slightly corrupt, one a foulmouthed alcoholic and one unfathomably naïve) and their housekeeper, on a desolate island off the west coast of Ireland. 3 seasons and a Christmas special later, and you have one of the most often quoted sitcoms in this country. Here’s a quick snippet (embedding is disabled) from an episode, in which Father Ted (Dermot Morgan) is trying to teach alcoholic priest Father Jack (Frank Kelly) some more appropriate language for an impending visit by a bishop.

As Dave Banks mentioned a couple weeks ago, International TableTop Day is coming up at the end of March, and you can go to the official website to host an event or to find an event near you. There are already just over 100 “premium” events (mostly those hosted by retail locations and businesses, I believe) and even more that are hosted by groups, clubs, and individuals.

February 13th, 9:15 PM:We give up on creating a clean kitchen when we realize there are more dishes than room in the dishwasher. Dishwasher is loaded and run with the intention of running it again in the morning. Leftovers are put in the refrigerator, and we sit down for “our time.” (Our time: The space between the end of the day and passing out from exhaustion. Usually 15 to 30 minutes. Often spent sitting next to each other separately updating Facebook or Twitter.)

BYU physics students use a new technique to make a Cupid with nanostructures. (image: Lawrence Barrett/BYU)

Stumped about what to make your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day? Perhaps the world’s smallest Cupid will warm your dearest’s heart. All it takes is a plate, some microscopic iron and a blast of heat. A degree in physics wouldn’t hurt, either.

Brigham Young University physics professors Robert Davis and Richard Vanfleet conduct research with nanostructures, objects made from carbon nanotubes (CNT) that can only be viewed using optical and electron microscopes. When the metal particles are blasted with heated gas, they grow into a nanotube forest, with each stalk measuring just 20 atoms across. Most of the resulting nanostructure is composed of air.

“It’s a really fragile structure at this point,” says Davis. “Blowing on it or touching it would destroy it.”

The physicists have developed techniques to strengthen their nanostructures to make them stable. As part of that work, their research group — a mix of undergraduate and graduate students interested in nanoscience and nanotechnology — creates nanostructures to test the process. Occasionally, Davis and Vanfleet stray from practical products to assemble something more fun, such as the university logo or a tribute to basketball player Jimmer Fredette.

Recently, the professors and their students constructed a tiny homage to February’s biggest holiday: the Nanocupid. It took two tries to get their Cupid to meet specs, fixing a bent bow in the prototype. Nanostructures like this tend to take up to two days to construct.

The technology BYU is advancing is important for chemical separation. Filters can be produced in a precise way, with uniform holes one-tenth the circumference of a human hair. This has application in industries where oxygen masks are used, like health care, scuba diving and mining. “Compressed gas systems can generate particles that need to be filtered out,” explains Davis.

In addition to micro-filters, this CNT technology licensed by BYU is being applied to x-ray devices (with Moxtek) and chromatography (with US Synthetic). The tech can also be used to build sensors in micromachines to detect acceleration, rotation and hazardous chemicals.

One of the BYU students, junior Lawrence Barrett, submitted an entry to Innovation Idol, a business plan competition in Utah. As the only undergraduate in the field, he was nervous but gained confidence during the Q&A session. Barrett claims the BYU filters can be made for the same price as comparable products but with much higher flow rates at the same pressures.

“[W]hat we do, our angle of solving micro-mechanical problems, is so different than what anyone else has done,” says Barrett. “We’re not just making small improvements.”

According to Barrett, the next step is to gather more data on filters constructed with different materials, such as nickel. “We have much more experience filling CNT forests with carbon than nickel,” says Barrett, whose work focuses on perfecting the electroplating in the process. “We are trying to gather a large amount of reliable data on the performance of the filters so that we can convince investors to invest in the product and companies to use it.”

Barrett plans to apply to Ph.D. programs in a year to work on developing a high-capacity battery.

Bujold is the author who pulled me back into reading science fiction. I read the classics growing up, with Robert Heinlein a particular favorite, but after a while, it was difficult to find excellent science fiction that also featured three-dimensional characters. Then a fellow romance writer insisted I read Cordelia’s Honor.

It’s the story of how Cordelia Naismith, a women from a completely open galactic culture, and Aral Vorkosigan, a man from a brutal backward planet, fall in love and then try to bring the best of both their cultures together to change Aral’s planet for the better. What I love most about Bujold’s work is how unpredictable it is. Aral and Cordelia are on opposite sides of a war, yes, but that doesn’t play out the same as any other book that I’ve read. There’s intense action but the consequences of those actions are fully explored. At the end, I adored these characters and wished their universe was real.

For those looking at the cover above and thinking “David Weber,” I have to apologize. It’s not a particularly good representation of the book. There is a sword but Cordelia doesn’t have a captain’s chair and I can’t recall her ever wearing a green dress. Bujold in general needs better covers.

While Cordelia’s Honor is the first book in the Vorkosigan series, A Civil Campaign is one of the later ones. It’s focused on the romance Aral and Cordelia’s son, Miles. But, like all Bujold’s books, it’s far more than that. The book is a conscious echo of the best Regency romances from Jane Austen and others and, like those novels, explores the culture around them through the prism of the romance.

It also has one of the most embarrassing and yet funniest dinner scenes I’ve ever read. Poor Miles. Even though he deserves it.

Linnea Sinclair’s Gabriel’s Ghost and Finder’s Keepers. I recommended Sinclair’s books for the holiday gift guide as well as she’s one of my current favorite writers. She combines the fast-pace and the detailed world building of galactic science fiction with an excellent romance. It’s a hard combination to pull off and Sinclair does it with panache and fun.

Catherine Asaro’s Primary Inversion and Quantum Rose. A Nebula-award winning author, Asaro has a PhD. from Harvard in physics. Her galactic stories of the Skolian Empire showcases that knowledge. These are two of my favorites. Quantum Rose is a good place to start as it’s told mostly from the point of view of a women on a rural planet who must find a way to use the newcomers from the Empire to help her people.

Karin Shah’s Starjacked. Shah is an author I found through an online group dedicated to SF Romance. She had a free short story available on her blog that I enjoyed, especially because of a well-written hand-to-hand fight scene. This is only available in ebook form but for those looking for a last-minute gift, that might be an advantage since it can be downloaded instantly.

The Key by Pauline Baird Jones. Jones counts among her readers a rocket scientist who works for NASA. The heroine of this book is an Air Force pilot who crashes on an inhospitable planet during an intergalactic war.

For those who are woefully short of funds this year, there are still options.

The Baen Free Library includes books by Bujold, Andre Norton, Mercedes Lackey, David Drake and David Weber, among many others. And The Gutenberg Project has a ton of free science fiction in the public domain. Of course, it’s not all romance, but among the many authors there’s likely to be something that she will enjoy.

While some may argue that Valentine’s Day is nothing more than an excuse to support the greeting card and floral industries, I really thing it’s a great idea to have a day set aside for making sure you take a breath from the day-to-day routine and acknowledge the feelings that made you a geek parent in the first place.

Hopefully those feelings include love. They do for me.

I happen to be lucky enough to be married to another geek, which means she gets a lot of the same things I do. I wouldn’t be the person, and especially neither the geek or the dad I am, if it weren’t for my wonderful wife Robin. I love you!

I’d like to welcome the other GeekDads, and any of our readers who want to, to leave messages in the comments for the geek loves in your life on this special day.

This is a wonderful piece of whimsy by cartoonist and Lego aficionado Mark Anderson.

The dual engines swivel independently for maneuverability and easy landing, it’s armed to the teeth with four underside cannons, and its small size and stealth geometry keeps it off enemy radars until it’s too late.

But a recent skirmish has left our intrepid and beautiful pilot, Capt. Val N. Tine, with an enemy rocket lodged in the fuselage! Can she make it back to base? Why didn’t the rocket explode? And will she discover her enemy attacker was actually her secret admirer, Q-Pid?

Friend of GeekDad Michael Kurz tweeted us this awesome birthday cake his wife presented to him. She was heard to say “It may not look like much, but it’s got it where it counts; custard filling and buttercream frosting!”